To Fall, Gently And Otherwise
by Plesiosaur
Summary: 40 Weeks universe Bubbline request fic. Set between chapters one and two of This Could Be The Start Of Something. After three years of sharing an apartment Marceline really should know better than to take Jake's date advice. How many times is it even acceptable to fall over on a second date?


**Shoutout to my girl Schwarzeil who requested a 40 Weeks backstory fic! Well it's more like a sequel to This Could Be The Start Of Something, because she wanted to know more about the 'clandestine, breathless and entirely spontaneous make out session in the back of the cinema' and Marcy's love-drunk ramblings as referenced in 40 Weeks. It's always a pleasure to write about my favourite dorks being in love.**

 **FYI, misattribution of arousal is a real thing! And so is the urge to squeeze someone cute until their eyes pop out. It's called cute aggression and it's your brain's way of trying not to go crazy from how freaking _cute_ something is. Psychology is whack. Also! The Fly is probably one of the worst films I've ever seen, don't take it's inclusion as a recommendation. But if you really wanna see it then go for it. It's terrible. Be warned, that's an hour and a half of your life you won't get back.**

 **Content Warning: threats of gagging someone with a butt plug, less creepy than it sounds when you read it in context. Pop psychology, smooching, general cuteness. Possibly cute enough to make you want to squeeze someone until their eyes pop out?**

* * *

"Finn Finn Finn Finn FINN FINN FINNNNNNN _FINNNNNNNNN FINNFINNFINNFINN!"_

He surmised eventually that she was trying to get his attention and wasn't buying that he couldn't hear her. He sighed and put down the sandwich he was eating.

"Yeah? You need something?"

Next second there was an excitable dark haired girl hanging around his neck and grinning up at him like a living pendant.

"Finn, I think I might be in love! Did you ever see someone so cute you just wanna, urgh I dunno, squeeze them until their eyes pop out? Ohmygod Bonnie is _amazing!_ "

He unwound her arms from his throat as gently as possible and tried to level her a serious stare, ruined slightly by the blob of ketchup on the side of his mouth from his sandwich.

"No, I've never wanted to squeeze a girl's eyes out. Marcy, get a grip. You've been out on one date with her. I think you need to wait a little longer before you decide you're in love with someone. What if she has disgusting personal habits or something?" he asked.

"Like what?" Marceline frowned back.

"I dunno! Maybe she eats her own earwax or grows her pubes into braids or something!"

"You, my dearest Finnothy, are a _party pooper_. Do you know that? You are literally the person who is pooping on my love party. And I do not care for your poop, not one bit. So you can take that negative attitude of yours and shove it somewhere it might do some good, like plugging up the metaphorical poophole that you're ruining everything with. And then we can all just enjoy the love party without worrying about wading through a swap of Finn poop."

"But seriously you-"

"Party. Pooper."

"Marcy-"

"Don't make me buy a butt plug and shove it in your whiny poop mouth! You know I will!"

" _Fine_. Well done, you're in love, I'm happy for you." he huffed insincerely. "Don't you have a date tomorrow night? Shouldn't you be agonising over what to wear and stuff?"

"I've got it all planned out. It's perfect, the ultimate date. There is literally no way she won't fall madly in love with me after tomorrow night." Marcy replied with a smug grin.

"So she's really into crazy, then? Did she list 'totally mental classical musicians' as one of her biggest turn ons?" Finn asked with a frown.

She just smile sweetly at him and kissed his cheek with a giggle before almost skipping from the kitchen and away to her room to practice writing 'Bonnie+Marcy 4EVA' in her very best handwriting surrounded by curly love hearts or something. At least, that's what Finn assumed from the ridiculous way she'd been acting all week.

"Dude, can't you do something about her?" he asked Jake, who was busy frowning over a complex recipe.

"Nah, sorry bro. The vet said you've gotta wait until their heat ends before you can get them neutered. You're just gonna have to put up with her yowling and rubbing herself against your legs until it finishes." his brother replied, not looking up.

"Come on, Jake. Marcy may be bad but she's not a cat."

"You say that now but you didn't see the amount of black hair I had to pull out of the shower drain this morning. I think she must be getting her summer coat."

"You should encourage her in every way to move in with her new girl as soon as possible, if only so I never have to hear about or think about that ever again." Finn replied with a shudder of horror.

"You think that's bad? I've lived with her for three years, bro. I share a bathroom with her. You think having a cute lesbian as your roomie is gonna be like a classy but smutty porn flick, trust me it's more like having a super annoying sister who won't shut up about her gross sex life. We both love the Marcester to bits but if I'd known it was gonna be like this I might have thought longer about moving in." Jake replied nonchalantly.

"You live here rent free, your landlord is her father who thinks you're amazing, she's a neat freak who does all your washing up and you're best friends. Don't try to pretend life is hard for you." Finn replied with a weary smile.

"Fair point. Ten outta ten, would live with again. I just wish she'd learn not to overshare on the gory details of her hook ups and maybe be a little less uptight about loaning out her hairdryer."

"Um, why'd you need to borrow her hairdryer? Jake, your hair is like an inch long and you rarely shower." Finn asked in confusion.

"Long story short I forgot to do laundry for a while, I had to soap out some underwear in the sink and they were taking too long to dry. Now I'm not allowed to touch her stuff without telling her what I need it for and most of the time she stands over me until I'm done using whatever it is."

"And you wonder why? Dude, that's disgusting. You're lucky she didn't kick you out." Finn sighed with an eye roll. "If you tried that stuff in the army-"

"Would you shut up about the army already? Don't you have something better to do than hang around my kitchen anyway? Go for a run or oil your chest and admire yourself in the mirror or something. Go on, I wanna try out this salt-crust salmon bake and if you don't distract me and it goes perfectly then I'll have time to make macaroons for after. Off you go, be back by six if you want amazing dinner."

Finn pushed away from the counter with a sigh and went to follow his brother's advice. He'd go for a run and test his fitness again since his army physical was only a few weeks away. Pretty soon he'd be in boot camp and then straight to his officer training. It couldn't come soon enough for Finn, he was itching to start his military career.

...

"Can I just make sure that the food we ordered is absolutely and completely free of garlic?" Bonnie asked the bored looking waiter in concern.

"I put a note for the chef on the order. Should be ok." he shrugged.

"Could you check? Just, my date has a very severe allergy and if you feed her garlic there's a pretty high chance she'll die horribly right here in front of all your other customers. And then I'll personally sue you and this restaurant for everything you own up to and including the clothes you're wearing. And you'll probably go to jail for a very long time. So I'd really appreciate if you'd double check it for me." Bonnie smiled back, to all appearances just as sweet and polite as always.

He swallowed, pale faced, and disappeared into the kitchen. A minute later he was back and nodding in relief.

"Yeah, I spoke to the chef, he said he'll make absolutely sure there's no garlic in there."

"Thanks, that's so sweet of you!" Bonnie smiled back, turning on her heel and making her way back across the room to where her date was waiting at their table.

"Something wrong?" Marcy asked when she slid back into her seat.

"No, just checking they'd gotten our order right. I like to be thorough." Bonnie replied innocently. If she ended up having to rush her date back into hospital with an allergic reaction again she was going to be very annoyed with the restaurant and might even follow through on her threat, ask Lady to sue them or something. Having a lawyer friend was pretty awesome.

"So were you in work today?" Marcy asked, just a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, I was on the renal ward. Mostly it's old ladies with urine infections and stuff. I'll be honest, urology isn't the most appealing dinner conversation. How's orchestra?" Bonnie asked instead.

"Huh, fine I guess. Boring. We're rehearsing Brahms' German Requiem and just... snore. I know most people think it's one of his finest works but there's something about it that makes me feel like my brain is slowly leaking out of my ears. I'm not a fan of Brahms to start with and he's just so damn long-winded and the German Requiem is so predictable and, yeah, sorry, even talking about why it's boring is boring." Marcy replied with a self-conscious shrug.

"I'll be honest, I have no idea how Brahms' German Requiem even sounds. Bad, I guess?"

"Not bad exactly, just boring to play. Predictable, melodramatic, not even a slight challenge. But if you wanna come watch me play something tedious that does nothing to show off my skills then you can come along next month, we've still got tickets available."

"Sure, why not. It'll be good to get some culture into me." Bonnie replied with a smile. For a date that cute she'd definitely sit through a couple of hours of classical music. She could run through her medical vocabulary in her head if it got too boring, she figured.

Their food came a few minutes later and after a quick confirmation sniff Marceline took a small bite, nodding after a second when her head failed to spectacularly inflate. No garlic, it was fine. Bonnie smiled across the table at her and Marcy swallowed a bit too hard, still a little surprised she'd managed to score such a hot date. She was trying to play it cool but it was difficult because every time the redhead smiled at her Marcy felt a little dizzy from the way her heart sped up.

"So tell me about this movie we're gonna go see tonight." Bonnie started when the gap in the conversation stretched a little uncomfortably.

"Oh, it's a sci-fi horror classic! David Cronenberg's _The Fly_ , complete with extended scenes and the original score. It's about this mad scientist who accidentally mixes his DNA up with a fly and slowly turns into this giant evil man-fly hybrid and goes around vomiting acid on people." Marcy enthused, eyes sparkling.

"Sounds awful. Which particular field of science would you like me to ruin it for you with?" Bonnie asked teasingly.

"Umm, go ahead and try to ruin it with geology." Marcy grinned.

"I did say 'science'. But sure, I'll pay extra attention to the rocks in the movie and point out all the inconsistencies I notice. Prepare for a very boring date."

"Oh really? Well perhaps I have other stuff planned to fight the boredom of an awesome movie with excellent company." Marcy replied with a sly grin. "Movie doesn't start till ten, it's a late one."

"So were you gonna take three hours over dinner?" Bonnie asked, confused.

"Nope, I planned a surprise. Did you happen to walk through the park today?" Marcy replied.

"No? Why?"

"No reason. Just checking."

"Sounds ominous. Well I can't wait to find out what this surprise is, but I have to warn you if it's anything that involves physical violence my main way of de-stressing after a long day is by running through my kickboxing drills in the gym. You know, in case you had some sorta zombie apocalypse scenario in mind." Bonnie replied with a grin.

It was a short walk from the restaurant to the park and just as they were coming to the gates Bonnie became aware that there was a hand sort of gently nudging her own, like its owner wasn't completely confident enough to reach out and just hold her hand. Possibly it was an invitation? Only one way to find out, she supposed. She laced their fingers together loosely as they walked and Marcy shot her a slightly shy smile. Yeah, that was definitely an invitation then. She smiled back and squeezed Marcy's fingers, letting her know it was ok to hold her hand.

"I'm hearing music and a lot of kids laughing up ahead." Bonnie said quietly after a few minutes of walking through the park hand in hand sharing sidelong smiles.

"Yeah, that's the surprise. I took you to a kid's birthday party." Marcy grinned back.

"Sorry, no, I don't believe you. You're messing with me." Bonnie replied. Then they turned a corner through some trees and were face to face with the last thing she'd ever expected.

"Surprise. I hope you like ice skating." Marcy said quietly.

It was a temporary ice rink under a huge pavilion, half full of kids squealing excitedly and couples skating arm in arm. And slouched against the payment booth was a very familiar figure, almost unrecognisable without his extra-large tuxedo.

"Jake?" Bonnie asked in surprise.

"Hey. Nice to meet you sober. Er, you're probably wondering what I'm doing here. So, I'm temping at a ton of different restaurants right now and they're sometimes kinda patchy with hours, I do whatever I can on the side to make up the shortfall. And they wanted someone to take the cash on this place so I've got the next week listening to screaming children and watching couples stare mushily at each other. You guys get on for free because you're my friends and I'll even let you grab anything you want out of the drinks cabinet because I don't get paid enough to care. So what size skates can I get you?"

"Uh, a five. Thanks. So I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're not a graduate doctor either?" Bonnie asked while Jake rooted around under the desk for size five skates.

"Not even if you paid me a million pounds an hour. I'm a chef, fully qualified and looking for a permanent job right now which is frustratingly hard to come by. One day I wanna open my own restaurant but for now I'm getting some trade experience. The only meat I handle is dead. Uh, that came out wrong." he winced.

"Hehe, Jake likes the meat he handles to be dead. That's going on facebook." Marcy grinned. Jake just sighed and slung two pairs of size five skates at her.

"Put your skates on and go be soppy, I've gotta watch the desk. No smooching on the ice, it distracts the kids."

"You're the worst wingman who ever lived, by the way." Marcy sighed at him. She slid her shoes off and handed them back across the desk to Jake who grinned back at her,

"Whatever, Babygoth. Go enjoy your ice skating." he replied.

It was getting late in the evening and most of younger kids were leaving, there were only a few couples out on the ice by the time they'd gotten into their skates.

"I've not been skating since I was a kid." Bonnie told her a little anxiously. "I'm a bit worried I might accidentally skate over your fingers or something."

"I'm sure you can sew them back on if you accidental cut my fingers off." Marcy replied. She very carefully didn't say anything pervy, she'd save all the finger jokes for telling Finn later and seeing if she could time it to make him choke on his beer. That was always hilarious. But scaring away her date by telling dirty jokes probably wasn't the best thing she could do. So instead she offered Bonnie her arm and they made their way carefully out onto the ice together.

"I don't even wanna think about how much electricity it takes to keep this amount of water frozen in the middle of summer." Bonnie said as they slowly moved off away from the side.

"Yeah, I dunno whose bright idea it was to set this up during a heatwave but I don't see it being a regular thing. Still, we can enjoy it while it's here. So you've been skating before?" Marcy replied a little distractedly. She was very carefully looking at her feet and trying to keep her balance as much as possible.

"Yeah, quite a lot. I used to go to the ice rink near the base in Suffield with my brother while we were stationed up there, I skated more in that one year than I have in the rest of my life. But I was only a kid, my father was pretty important with the military and we moved around a lot. He was involved in a lot of training projects. So after enduring a Canadian winter we got shipped to Kenya for a while, just in time for an African summer. Not a lot of ice skating there but I did go on safari and got pretty magnificently sunburned."

"Sounds exciting." Marcy agreed, wobbling along on her skates. "I've never actually skated before but how hard can it be? I mean, kids can do it, I'm usually pretty good at stuff like this-"

Fate, it turned out, was a total bitch. Because the words had barely left her lips before Marceline completely lost her balance and landed hard on her butt with a wince. Bonnie almost fell over too from laughing, but of course the redhead managed to stay upright and once she got her breath back she grinned down impishly at her date while skating backwards rings around her.

"So easy. Kids can do it. This was a brilliant idea, I'm so glad we went skating." she said happily.

"Yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying my instant karmic payback so much. You know you're gonna have to go to the cinema with someone who looks like they peed themselves, right? Cause I can totally feel the ice melting through right now. This is the absolute last time I listen to Jake's brilliant date ideas." Marcy huffed, trying and failing to get back to her feet. She was just scrabbling around on the ice getting her jeans wetter and wetter with melt water. Like Bambi, Bonnie thought with a grin.

"Get on all fours, put one foot between your hands and push straight up from there then put your other foot next to the first. I'd help but you'll pull me over too. If it makes you feel any better my brother never worked out how to stand up from the ice either." Bonnie told her, still smiling and skating slow backwards circles without any apparent effort.

Finally back on her feet and blushing furiously Marcy attempted to brush the ice flakes off her legs; it only made them melt faster so she was even more soaked.

"Well at least my jeans are all the same colour now." she sighed.

"You want me to give you an ice skating lesson?" Bonnie asked with a smile.

"Sure, why not? I can't embarrass myself any more than I already have, right? You must think I'm such a goofball." Marcy muttered, still blushing.

"Yeah, but you're a really cute goofball so don't worry about it. First you need to be aware of your balance. The best way to do that is to make sure your head is as directly above your butt as possible. So long as your head and butt are in a line pointing straight down at the ground then your centre of gravity is stable and you're less likely to fall. Yeah, like that. Ok, now bend your knees slightly and try to relax, it's easier to skate if you're not holding yourself rigid. Slide your feet heel-first and try to go slowly towards me. Awesome, look, you're skating!"

Jake was watching from the desk and shook his head fondly when Marcy fell on her butt for the second time a minute later. They did make an absolutely adorable couple, he thought to himself. And his best friend was so wrapped up in her date that she hadn't noticed he'd closed the rink early and the only other couple still there were taking their skates off. He figured it was the least he could do, it wasn't like anyone was checking what time he left anyway. At least her date looked like she was having a blast; Bonnie seemed happiest when she was instructing someone in something. Jake suffered a momentary shudder of horror at what cooking with her must be like; he didn't envy Marcy at all if she ended up having something long term with the lovely redhead because he just couldn't abide anyone trying to boss him in the kitchen. But Marcy was all about strong, independent women who taught her new stuff. Jake was convinced she was just attracted to girls who bossed her around but he also knew she could hold her own if needs be, he wasn't terribly concerned that she'd get into something abusive. Nah, Jake thought to himself, looked like Marce had gotten herself a keeper. That was good, it would give her someone else to drag to her performances and might encourage her to cultivate more than just two friends at a time. They were giggling together, skating hand in hand and talking quietly, both practically glowing with how into each other they were. He smiled, glad for his friend, and started mentally composing his best man's speech.

 _When I first saw Marcy and Bonnie together I knew immediately that they were perfect for each other. Mostly because Marce was on her ass on the ice rink and getting laughed at by her date and hadn't stormed off in an angry sulk yet, so I figured something magical must be happening between them..._

...

 _"_ _A fly... got into the... transmitter pod with me that first time, when I was alone. The computer... got confused - there weren't supposed to be two separate genetic patterns - and it decided to... uhh... splice us together. It mated us, me and the fly. We hadn't even been properly introduced."_

"This is the worst movie I've ever seen." Bonnie whispered across their tub of popcorn.

"Wait until he starts vomiting stomach acid on people. Jeff Goldblum was tipped for an Oscar for this performance." Marcy whispered back, eyes still glued to the screen.

"Seriously? Do they have a 'Worst Abuse of Science' category at the Oscars? I literally can't think of a single good thing about this film." Bonnie replied quietly. Marcy looked around, suddenly concerned that her choice of trashy body-horror movie hadn't been the best thing for a second date.

"Nothing? Not even the company?" Marcy whispered, aiming for joking but probably sounding more anxious than she'd wanted to let on.

"The company is pretty spectacular. That and the popcorn are my favourite bits." Bonnie smiled back. "So can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Well you know how I'm a doctor, right? And that means I've studied quite a lot of science in general. Including basic psychology for a year back in college. And I seem to remember a very often misquoted theory called the misattribution of arousal that states that if you can get your date to feel scared or excited they might mistake the rise in heart rate and rapid breathing for sexual attraction and be more likely to want another date or make some sort of romantic advance. Problem is that if your date already knows about that bit of research they're probably immune to its effects. Or it might not work if you take them to the worst horror movie ever made. So my question was, have you ever heard of that theory?"

With every half-whispered word out of the redhead's mouth Marceline had been more and more horrified. She'd fallen on her ass far more than was really acceptable for a second date, her jeans were still damp and she'd tried to use pop psychology on someone who'd studied fields of science Marcy hadn't even heard of before. It wasn't the best second date she'd ever been on. And she'd just been busted. _Shit_. There wasn't a lot she could do except try to brazen it out and gloss over it. So instead of denying it or trying to defend herself or anything at all involving words she just leaned across the small distance between them and placed a soft kiss on the other girl's lips. Go for broke, she figured. Because either Bonnie liked her and didn't mind that she'd tried the horror movie date thing or she was angry and didn't want to see her again. Either way a kiss seemed like the easiest way to find out without having to have an awkward conversation about it. And apparently karma had decided to give Marcy a break for once, because Bonnie leaned in and kissed her back enthusiastically. Probably something gory was happening on the screen because someone was screaming in the background but their attention was completely on each other and not on the awful movie anymore. Marcy was hyper aware of every tiny connection between them, every place their skin touched tingled like a current was running through it and her heart was definitely beating faster than normal. Her breath caught when the tip of a tongue ran gently against her bottom lip and then they weren't just chastely kissing anymore, it was full on back-of-the-cinema making out. And Marcy at least lost track of the film completely, her head was filled with hands threading through her hair and soft lips pressed urgently against her, sighing into the kiss.

"Pretty good distraction." Bonnie whispered breathlessly when she finally pulled back for air.

"Yeah." Marcy replied, a little dazed and with absolutely no idea what the redhead was talking about except that she'd probably agree with more or less anything to get another one of those incredible kisses. "You, ah, wanna watch the rest of this movie?"

"Well we've paid for tickets but I'm afraid I wasn't quite paying attention and I may have missed some important plot points. So I guess while we're honour bound to stay here in these nice comfy seats and eat popcorn I can't really focus on the film. I missed why the fly-scientist dude was chasing that woman so the movie's ruined for me." Bonnie replied with a sly smile.

"Oh. Oh shit, I'm so sorry. Do you want me to run through the plot for you? See that woman's his ex-girlfriend and she just found-"

She was cut off by warm and lusciously soft lips pressing against her own again and those same wonderful hands stroking down the side of her face, cupping her cheek and drawing her closer.

"Stop talking." Bonnie whispered against her mouth, and Marcy was more than glad to do that.

So she was a total goofball and really crappy at picking date movies, but luckily it seemed like Bonnie didn't mind that too much. Given the available evidence Marcy was willing to bet the other girl actually kinda liked her. Well that was lucky, because she could definitely deal with being thoroughly kissed by her breath-takingly gorgeous and insanely clever date. Next time she wouldn't take Jake's advice for what they should do when they went out together though. Next time she'd just got for her trusty date standby, a well prepared dinner at her place and some nice background music, a bottle of wine and good conversation. And it would be their third date so maybe if she was really lucky it wouldn't be their last. That was the last coherent thought Marceline had for the rest of the movie; when her brain started working properly again the cinema lights were coming back up and the credits were rolling. Totally worth missing half the film for, she thought distractedly. Finn might have been right that it wasn't really possible to be in love with someone after one date. Definitely it needed two dates to be sure. And now she was absolutely certain; she was falling, gently and otherwise.


End file.
